To Those Who Need to Find Their Voices (Despite Facebook and The Black Helicopters)

All you have to do is look at my last post and you’ll see I haven’t written in 3 months. 😦 And I didn’t even write my follow-up to that passionate post like I said I would! Boooooooooo Patty, right?!?

As I was saying to someone on Saturday, my reason currently is: “I am trying to find the voice of this blog.” (That’s yogaspeak for “I’m afraid to open my mouth.”) A couple of weeks ago, my excuse to people happened to be: “I am afraid the Black Helicopters are going to come for me.” (Yes, people, Black Helicopters are coming for me because I am writing a Montessori blog. The Special Ops are going to repel down, break down my door, and haul me off to Gitmo.)

Well, it’s good that I have progressed past the Conspiracy Theory thing, I suppose, but what gives? Because frankly I’m not even buying my excuses anymore.

Well let me back up as I try to summarize all that has been happening of late:

Despite the fact that I haven’t written lately, I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth, Montessori or otherwise. Things are going really well, actually. Despite that, I still have these sneaky voices inside that are telling me not to write. Funny though, they are also telling me that I am not doing enough and, BTW, things are just not happening for me like they are everyone else.

Huh?!?

Well, I hate to admit this, but I’ll just go ahead while we are here:

I spend a lot of time on Social Media. Actually, I am not sure what qualifies as “a lot,” but let’s just say it is more than I am willing to admit. Considering I don’t really post that much, I am not sure what surfing around is accomplishing. When all is said and done, though, my impression is that everyone is out there doing awesome things and I am not. (I am surfing Facebook, obviously!)

Since I am very analytical, I needed to come to some kind of understanding as to where these inner voices were getting their facts. The truth of the matter is that I realized that the things that I am whining to myself about that are not happening for me are not happening because I AM NOT ACTUALLY DOING THEM! And I am doing other things so I don’t have to (conveniently).

While I can sit here and give excuses of “I’m soooooooo busy that I don’t have the time to craft the perfectly written, engaging post about Montessori that is going to enlighten the whole world so I might as well just not bother,” that’s not the real reason. Let’s face it: We all have time each day to do the things we convince ourselves we don’t have time for.

The real reason is that I don’t want to write this blog and have to deal with the fact that no one is reading it. Because my poor, fragile ego can’t handle that. And “no one” doesn’t exactly mean no one, but it certainly feels that way. It’s hard when you are really excited about something and you share it and you just don’t receive the enthusiasm reflected back.

It’s a pretty lame excuse, but it’s the truth.

You see, I am STILL looking for external validation for the things I do in my life. Yes, I am STILL doing it, despite the fact that I am telling myself I am not and telling myself that I don’t need it. (How can I get anywhere if I get no likes on Facebook? I mean, the more likes you get the more people see your post, right?)

To combat this, I am “doing research” on (aka wasting exorbitant amounts of time trying to figure out) when the best time to post a blog is, or how to get more people to click on my link, or how to optimize keywords, and all that crap, ad nauseum. It’s draining and demoralizing. I am also now convinced that none of it’s correct. Besides, when did putting ourselves out there become reduced to stressing out about all THAT? (Oh, yeah Social Media. It’s free advertising. We gotta do whatever it takes.)

If you examine any successful person, you see that they previously spent a long time dealing with people not reading their stuff or even caring about them. Why? Because for a long time, no one knew they existed. (But if I can’t get someone to click on my Facebook post, how will they know my blog is cool?! Isn’t there a trick?) They just kept plugging along, doing what they love, until one by one, people saw what they were doing. And the reason they kept going is because what they were doing was vitally important to them. It came from within. They were doing it for internal reasons, as opposed to, external validation from others.

(And we thought that Social Media was going to eliminate all those years of hard work! It has, in fact, created more stress and more work.)

So today I have decided that I have a great need of stopping the procrastination on this blog.

As I have processed this information in the past week, I realize that I have a huge vision for myself and where I am going. While it seems like an enormous amount of things need to fall into place for it all to happen, I have to take a step to get moving.

So, you may ask: “Where did the above post come from all of a sudden?” What made me write this after 3 months?? Well, I just spent an entire week watching 3-6 year-olds in a local Montessori classroom. I have decided that I need to get over my fears and fragile ego and let you know what these children are doing. It is too important not to share.

These children are the future of our country. If we want things to change, it is going to start with us and how we, as adults, interact with, raise, and educate our children. WE have to change. All of us. But most of us don’t know change is possible, and by doing more of the same, unfortunately, we are risking our country continuing to decline.

I can’t live with that.

And besides, I can’t “find my voice” if I’m not actually saying anything. Wouldn’t you agree?